“If there’s a way we can maintain over-signing and eliminate any of the abuses that caused the concerns, then that’s what I would be for. Because there are so many positive benefits of over-signing for the players.”

22 responses to “Derek Dooley has a dream.”

Before, we could grayshirt an injured senior player. That’s a helluva benefit there, SOD, instead of getting a chance to find a school that will go ahead and put him on scholarship anyway, the kid gets to pay for school for a semester or two or just lay out of school entirely until he’s ready to go! And then he gets to play for the great Derek Dooley! What a deal!

Before, we could sign and place at a JuCo if the player wasn’t solid on grades, and the kid would have motivation to come to my school after he was done there. Boy, howdy, is THAT a benefit for the player! Without signing with Tennessee, he’d have no opportunity to find a junior college program, and no motivation like the possibility of choosing a program where he’ll be able to play right away in one or two years when he’s done with JuCo ball to make him want to get his grades up!

And, SOD points out that schools can still oversign, it’s just the schools that have at least 25 open slots that aren’t in danger of being over the 85 scholarship limit. Great point, SOD, teams that have players fail out, get arrested out, or who transfer because they’re alienated by their current coaching staffs ARE at a disadvantage!

Why is to so hard for coaches to just come out and say “we don’t like when the players have any control or rights with respect to this process and we want to keep it that way”? You’d come off a lot less self-righteous and probably be complimented for your blunt honesty.

Senator, this is off-topic, but I was looking for the post you had last month (or perhaps earlier) about the things Richt does well (recruiting, etc.) and the things he doesn’t (he’s always going to have an offense that is just good enough to manage the game, and he’ll rely on the defense to win). Anyway, I couldn’t find it for the life of me…any help?

Hmm. Which of these statements is closer to the truth, rather than the one we’re more emotionally directed towards?

“Over-signing allows schools to maximize their scholarship distributions, which benefits some kids and hurts others. When you weight the benefits and costs, more kids are being hurt than helped. If kids are having their educations unnecessarily disrupted, then that’s too high a price.”

“Over-signing is an absolute evil which always benefits the school but never benefits a kid.”

The second statement is absurd, but it seems to have become the assumption governing all discussion on this topic.

I’m just tired of our cultural requirement that every debate end up in black-white moral distinctions. I see some of SODs points. I don’t agree with him, but I’m sympathetic to the basic idea that schools like Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama simply have more demand from top players than other schools. Over-signing isn’t the answer, but neither is Georgia and North Texas operating with the same scholarship limits.

MIT and Alabama have different academic scholarship resources. Supply and demand. Not a difficult concept.

Good grief, man. I specifically said I didn’t agree with his perspective and that over-signing was NOT the solution.

But we can agree that a few schools could easily support more than 85 football scholarships and the off-setting Title IX requirements. Kids grow up dreaming of playing for Georgia. Why does Georgia has to turn away most of them, even after some of the ones it accepts don’t work out?

nah Goat Dawg….you wrong, my man, bad wrong!!…she is a very sweet and intelligent lady with a lot of self confidence….self confidence, that’s a good thing, you know. everyone has an ego, it’s part of our make up as humans….she is a very positive, self confident and intelligent person,,,,,,you obviously don’t know her….she is no lunatic…I know her, vince and derek all quite well….none are lunatics…all are very intelligent…..your opinion is your right, but readers here deserve some semblance of accuracy. Your comment has none

Goat…..respectfully, are you saying that I am incorrect in saying that Barbara is not a lunatic? lunatic is a pretty strong damnation of someone’s character. you seem reasonable, mightn’t you want to re phrase? Whichever, I will leave it at that, she is not a lunatic.